Finland... and the boat

Finland in all it's glory...

The morning after we woke up on the boat. The view was a lot better than this...

Me and Cormac in his Helsinki room

Our room. Better known to most people as a closet with a bathroom...

We arrived in Helsinki at the Port of Helsinki at 11:30 at night. I am really glad that we had Cormac there with us. We got off the boat and headed to the only bus that was lined up and hoped it would take us in somewhat of the direction we needed to go. It sort of did.

When I got off the bus and saw the people walking around at 12:30 at night. I didn’t really know what to think. People there had piercings in places I didn’t think you could get pierced. However, those Scandinavian girls pulled through as stereotype would say.

We got on another bus and twenty minutes later we were outside of the main city and in the area where Cormac lives. It was too dark to tell if it was nice or not. We just carried our bags in, made our cots, and made some pasta before going to bed. I was pretty hungry. After eating, lights out.

After traveling for two weeks and staying here and there, the weather being rainey and gloomy, and having piles of laundry to be done, we didn’t do anything. We had grand plans of going out and seeing Helsinki, but we didn’t. We woke up early, went across the street to the grocery store, bought food there, came back and just hung out. We did heaps of laundry and by that time, it was already 4 or so. It was a very welcomed break from our traveling. Just a full day to relax. Interestingly enough, Cormac’s roommates never left their rooms. It was an interesting set-up. You had to get into the main room where there are eight people sharing that, then unlock another small room with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom and then unlock another room which is one of the two bedrooms in there. From the outside, you need to use your key four times to get to your bedroom. Anyway, I never really saw them.

It seemed like everyone sharing his flat, or anyone from overseas was from Michigan. However, Michigan does have some strong environmental programs. That is what Cormac is studying, eventually getting a dual masters degree from NC State and a University in Sweden.

So, like I said, we just hung out and made food. Tacos… Then, before we knew it, it was already after midnight.

The next morning we woke up early and got ready. We were determined to at least see some of Helsinki. We took the bus in and got some really expensive coffee (3.50 to me is now expensive) and then went to the tourist information booth. That place was really funny because we kept asking one girl questions. Another lady kept coming up and saying “Sorry, she doesn’t know, its her first day.” We asked several questions and I am not lying when I say that she said this statement to every question we had as though we had left for three days to come back and ask different questions. It was borderline comical. Eventually I told the lady that I wanted the rookie girl to answer my question because that was the only way she was going to learn, and sure enough, with some browsing on the internet, she was able to help me.

Cormac was pretty impressive with the amount of knowledge he knew about Helsinki after having lived there for only a week. We saw three churches and that was about it. That was enough. We ate by the pier. There, Mike looked up and said “that ship has the same name as the one we are taking.” My reaction: that is the ship we are taking but its not in the port we thought it was going to be in. We walked over to the port and found out that the ship was indeed the ship we would be taking. So, it was very fortunate that Mike was looking around.

We didn’t have too much time after that, so we went back to Cormac’s and grabbed our bags. We also went to the Grocery store and bought food for the 16 hour ship ride. Mike and I waited at the port for about an hour before boarding.

Finland was nice, but to me 36 hours there was enough. Granted, I probably didn’t see that much but it was a nice stopover, resting place. Glad I went and maybe will go back again. I didn’t spend enough time there to really recommend it or not. Lots of Russians though…

On the boat…

The boat to take us from Finland to Sweden was one a bit smaller than a standard cruise boat. We saw our ticket, we then saw the map of the boat. Traveling around for five weeks after you have been volunteering is no money making endeavor. We had to save some money but decided that it would be nice to take a 16 hour boat ride between the two cities. Our room was under the cars. Probably under the water as well. We had no windows. However, it was nice. It would have been twice the size of first class on an airplane. We had our own toilet, shower, and sink. The bunked bed appeared out of thin air (or from the wall).

We walked around the boat from one end to the other end. We did this several times not knowing exactly what we were expecting would change. Regardless, you are on a boat, where else are you going to go. The water was a bit choppy but I think two years riding in a marshutni really prepared my stomach. Everything was fine. We ate our turkey sandwiches and decided we would treat ourselves to a beer in the bar, listening to a Scandinavian lady belt out some tunes. A very operatic voice for songs that should not be sung in that manner. Entertaining nonetheless.

We went to bed early by the rocking of the sea waves.

Since the room was pitch black, we had no way of telling what time it was, so Mike kept getting up every two hours because he didn’t think that anyone would let us know if we docked. (It turns out that they didn’t give any kind of announcement, but only played some screeching noises around 7:50pm (or what was about 6:50 because Mike didn’t know there was a one hour time difference.

Walking around outside was one of the more beautiful things I have ever done. Islands everywhere with these nice little red painted homes and clear water lapping up on the shores. The sky was clear and trees as far as the eye could see. Really an amazing sight. It was a bit chilly and now, being in Stockholm, I wish I didn’t send all my fleeces back to the US. Oh well. We got some coffee on the boat and kept staring outside. A couple hours later, we were already getting ready to disembark. We got our things and got off the boat. Definitely a memorable experience.

As we got off, we got to the arrivals area and met Rasmus. He was standing there with a sign which had our names written on it.

Now we were in Stockholm Sweden.

Until next time…

Sushi in Estonia...

The beautiful Tallinn from the spire of a church...

Mike and Cormac in front of me, bike riding.

Me and Mike standing in front of the church we climbed up to get pictures of picture #1.

Beard=gross

We left in the morning. We didn’t really have that much to eat because we had to go to the bus station shortly after we woke up. Cormac said he knew the way so we went with him and ten minutes before the bus was supposed to pull out, we made it there. We had our tickets but had to put our bags under the bus. The man there, who was not very helpful, did not like the fact that he had to put our baggage tickets on our bus tickets as we would soon learn soon that we would have to give our bus tickets (with our baggage tickets on them) to the bus people. We got on the bus and sure enough, we gave up our tickets.

We sat close to the back with a group of Spaniards who only spoke English. It was really bizarre but didn’t have the energy to spark conversation and figure out the reasoning behind their motives to speak English.

When we arrived in Tallinn after four hours, we tried to get our bags. The same man that gave us our baggage tickets asked us where our baggage tickets were. We said, “you put them on our bus tickets.” Apparently that wasn’t good enough for the man because he threw our bags back on the bus. So we waited until everyone else got their tickets. All over my bag, my name is written in permanent marker, so I got my passport out and went back over to the man. In the five minutes we were gone, he forgot who we were and didn’t realize there were only two bags in the bus. He asked, “which are your bags?”. I didn’t know if I should take this guys seriously enough and gave him probably the dumbest face of shock I could muster. Anyway, after lots of pantomiming and frustration, I said, “there is no one else here, my passport matches with the name written all over the bag.” He finally relented.

We walked down the street with our bags and got on the tram. Our fearless leader Mike walked us all around and told us to get off the tram way too early so we walked way past where we needed to go, just to walk back. Finally I stopped and in my broken Russian stopped someone and asked “excuse me, do you speak English.” The guy just looked at me and said “What?”. The guy apparently spoke English so in my excitement of not having to use Russian, asked him if he could help us out. He was from Greece and was very happy to help out lost Americans (us).

Arriving at the hostel, we learned that the amazing smart British hostel owner didn’t book three rooms, but just two. (I should say beds instead of rooms…). After waiting for about 30 minutes and walking through turtle pee (they had a turtle free-roaming in the living room of the hostel and walked right into it), they said that they had an open apartment and would not charge us extra. We took it. We went there, and three hours later, were able to put our things down. We all took naps and then went out and walked around the old town of Tallinn. Not that great. We got sushi. Really great. Then we walked back and watched “Defiance.” The Daniel Craig movie about militia men fighting Nazi Germany. Really good watch.

The next morning we woke up early and took our bags to another hostel. The guy working there was super nice and said that we could leave our bags there. So we left our bags behind one of the couches and walked around the Old Town some more. We went to a church and paid the two euro to go up the really small cave-like pathway up the million spiraling steps to the spire of the church. Russians drive me crazy sometime because we were standing there waiting for the line to move and the Russians came in and just walked between the people waiting to go in and the people coming out, basically pushing everyone out of the way. It was ridiculous. The view however, was totally worth it. It was amazing. You could see all of Tallinn and over the Harbor to the other side. I have picture of that and I will post those.

We then went down the street and found a place that rented bikes, so we rented bikes and went along the coast a ways to the other side. It was probably about 4 miles one way. That was a lot of fun. We stopped and took a lot of pictures and then rode back. By this time it was around 3:00, so we dropped off our bikes and found a place to eat pizza. It was gross, but really good at the same time because I was starving. We went back to the hostel and checked email and the weather and talked to the people staying at the hostel. They were nice enough. We then left around 6:00 and carried all our bags to the harbor. We found a place to sit and just hung out for about an hour and a half before getting on the boat. After we got on, we found a large couch and just staked out our area.

The boat ride was really nice. I mean the actual ride. The waters were calm, the people were not. We saw people wheeling around six 24-case boxes of booze around because the alcohol in Finland was ridiculously expensive. The people on the boat were out of control. I went up to the top deck and was trapped because two skinheads decided it was smart to get drunk and then wrestle in the middle of the cruise deck. So I watched, with a dumbfounded look on my face and then went downstairs. Two hours later, we were in Finland, at the Helsinki port.

We got our things and made our way to the public buses. At the city center, we changed buses and continued to Cormac’s place which is a good distance outside of the city.

I will write about Finland in the next blog but will leave you with some pictures.

Until next time…

Cinnamon Sally, Latvia

We arrived in Riga at 6ish. It was amazing to step off of the plane. The weather was perfect and the air smelled so sweet and fresh. I don’t know if I will ever forget stepping off of that plane. We got our bags from the baggage claim and saw we were one group of only five actually staying in Riga. Since all airBaltic flights go through Riga, there are a lot of connections at the tiny airport.

Last time I was here, the nice lady just stamped my passport and said “Welcome to Riga.” However, this time the man asked me a million questions and seemed reluctant to stamp my passport. We followed the hostel’s instructions and ran across the airport parking lot to take the #22 bus from the airport to the city center. We took the half-hour bus to the center and carried our bags down the road. We got lost in the underground crossing because nothing was marked and there were roughly 15 million exits. Again, in my broken Russian, I asked someone the directions to a place and found we were on the right street. As we got to the top of the stairs, my good buddy, Cormac, came up behind us and led us the rest of the way to the hostel.

The hostel was fantastic and reminded me of the hostels in Sarajevo and Mostar. Both had great vibes. Ieva, who is the young and hip hostel owner had opened up about a year ago. She had really done a great job. It was a large hostel but the layout made it seem small and personable. Very personable. For those of you coming this way, I highly recommend you stay at “Cinnamon Sally’s Backpacker’s hostel.” Anyway, we basically checked in, unpacked a bit, changed into some warmer clothes, and then headed to get some dinner.

Dad you will be proud. We went to the Latvian version of K&W. Basically it was cafeteria style Latvian food for a decent price. We ate there and went back to the hostel and just hung out with others there. Steve and Darrah were two recent graduates from Ireland just traveling around. Proved to be good boys. Always interesting talking to the Irish. Basically after that, we went to bed. The first time I fell asleep without the paranoia of bugs eating me in the night.

The next day we woke up and walked around to find some breakfast before our free walking tour starting at noon. We started out walking down a road and ran into a fax place. I needed to fax something to my advisor, so I printed my sheets out and tried faxing my papers. Faxing proved to be unfruitful. So we continued onward and found a place to eat a sandwich and then headed over to the meeting place.

We waited there for some time and then were met by our tourguide James. He is an English guy who saw lots of immigrants going to England and decided that if everyone was going west, he should go east. He has been here for six years and a couple years ago started these “free walking tours.” If you think the tour is good, you give him money. If not, then you don’t. It was really good though. It was two hours long and he took us to many of the sites there and then some. (I wish I could post pictures but my memory card messed up so I will have to just wait until I get back to the US to take care of all that). We saw little Moscow, some interesting art nouveau architecture, an interesting super modern village inside of Riga, old town, and some other places along the way. Really nice tour.

We then went to the occupation museum and witnessed what life was like under Soviet rule. Not very good from 1941-1991. Seeing these kinds of places really show the perseverance and the robustness of the human element because I just can’t imagine going through the things that the Latvians and others went through. Worst of all, not knowing an end date to all the suffering and torture. Hard to swallow sometimes.

After the museum, I went to the post office to buy some stamps and to try faxing my paper from there. It proved fruitful. I sent me postcards and then walked back to the old town to sit at an outdoor café. One of the cool things about being is here is that there are a lot of young people on the side of the road playing their instruments. Near the café were four ladies in their early 20’s playing as a string quartet. They played many of my favorite pieces.

We walked back to the hostel and on the way, went to the supermarket. We wanted to get some pasta and make white sauce to go with it. So we bought mushrooms, blue cheese, cream, red peppers, onions, garlic, and gnocchi. It turned out really well but I’m sure we also gained about 20 pounds by eating all that cheese and dairy…

It’s interesting the people you meet at hostels. I have yet to meet someone I didn’t want to talk to. The best hostels are not necessarily the ones that give you towels, or have many bathrooms, or have wireless internet, but they are the ones that are more conducive to small social gatherings. Cinnamon Sally did a great job of having a central room that you had to go through in order to leave. The kitchen was there too and to use the bathroom, you had to go through the central room, thus always creating an opportunity to start conversation.

While we were eating, there was a very interesting guy that came in. He was carrying a bike with no pack or anything. He came over and sat down for a moment. Lots of great energy and excitement. One of those people that would be able to make just about anyone feel better just by being around him. We asked him where he had been riding. We figured he just went out for a stroll. He is from Luxembourg originally from Spain. He left Luxembourg July 19^th or so and just started biking through various countries. He had gone through France and the Netherlands, before heading into Norway, hitting the northern most city before going through Sweden and Finland and ending up in Latvia. He had traveled quite a bit on his bike.

We asked him where his stuff was and he asked “what stuff.” The stuff that you sleep in like a tent or a sleeping bag or something like that. And without even a second thought, he said “come on guys, I sleep under bridges and in random parks, sometimes just on the side of the road. To that I said “Jesus Christ”. His response with much excitement… “That’s my name, Jesus.” I believe it...

Now you may think that I am making this up but I have two others to vouch for this story. He was still in University and was a bouncer back in Luxembourg. Not a tall guy but a very built one. He kept telling us how badly out of shape he was. (Because those that ride 50 million miles on a bicycle and sleep in parks are really out of shape…). Anyway, he asked if we wanted to see pictures of him before he started his cycling. Everyone thought that he would be a huge overweight guy who just decided to start riding. We were not prepared for the pictures we saw. He was a bodybuilder and actually lost muscle mass by going on this cycling trip. Really unforgettable guy.

We also spent some time with Steve and Darrah. Two Irish lads from Dublin, Ireland. Really friendly guys who were just traveling after they finished University. They reminded me of Damien, the Irishman that I met and worked with in Korea. I just loved the way they spoke. Darrah looked and acted just like the guy from “Little Miss Sunshine;” the brother that never spoke until he had his mental breakdown. It was uncanny.

Ieva was the owner as I mentioned before and later on that night, I told her that I was making a documentary of our travels. She asked how I was doing it and I showed her my little iFlip. Somehow we decided that I would film her doing a “cribs” themed short about her hostel. So we walked around and she showed us her hostel and she uploaded it somewhere online so that future hostel-stayers could view it.

Daega was her assistant and a Heidi klum look-alike at the age of 21. She was really cool. There was another girl working there Ilze who was new. They all looked the same. It is weird. There were several questions asked such as “as you three sisters” or “do you have to be 6 feet, blonde, and gorgeous to be Latvian.” I didn’t ask these questions… but I was thinking them.

The following morning, we woke up and reheated our dinner from the previous night. We realized we might be late for the train so we hurried across the street. We started running when we saw the train for no apparent reason only to realize we were over 30 minutes early. That must have been a site. We met an Australian girl who was traveling for whatever reason and went to the castles in Siguda with her.

When we got there, we just walked around. Again, the air was so crisp and nice. Weather, couldn’t have been better. We saw different castles and a sandstone cave with inscriptions from the 1600s in it. It was just a nice day to walk around. We rode on the cable car and saw the gorge, walked to another castle, realized we would miss our train, took the public bus back, and ran again to the train, just in time to sit down before it left. A two hour trip turned into a 7 hour trip. It was great.

That night we went out with Daega. She took us to a karaoke bar with several of the other hostel people. The next morning we got up early and again, almost missed our bus to Tallinn. Cormac thought he knew the way to the bus station. We took a wrong turn. Time was cutting short. But, we made it, also with a couple minutes to spare. We need to stop doing that.

(Did I mention when we left Istanbul, we had been taking our time a bit too much and we heard the airline call for us to get to the plane?) We need to start getting our act together.

There is something about Latvia that is just so nice. The people are nice, friendly. The architecture is great. Lots to do. Quiet. I would recommend this place to anyone willing to go somewhere off the beaten path. The whole country, not just Riga, seems to be really great. I will certainly miss Latvia and will surely go back.

(Did I mention that I would love to post pictures, but my memory card messed up?)

Until next time…

The last couple days in Turkey.

Yesterday I talked to my parents. One month from yesterday I will be back at home. Interesting thinking about that. I know I have mentioned that several times before but it is a weird feeling being away from home for nearly 28 months and then heading back home because at this point, its not really my home anymore since I had been away for that long. I am excited to go through the transition though. I’m glad we are slowly making our way back. I think going from Armenia straight back to the US would have jolted me pretty good.

The last couple days in Turkey have been pretty relaxed. Nothing we have to see. It is 1:30pm as I write this and it is nice knowing that we saw all the touristy things and more. We went to the Dolmabache which is where Ataturk died. From the front a very modest looking structure. You go in it and it stretches what seems to be three football fields. It is huge. There was one room where just the Taj Mahal, took my breathe away. They don’t allow photographs to be taken inside but it was amazing. There were paintings all over the place. Some to make the room look even bigger but it was absolutely stunning. It is weird standing next to a bed where a ruler took his last breath.

We went to the Bazaar but since it was Sunday, it was closed. We got some food in the area and then came back. Later on in the night we went to get some dinner, at 9pm. We met up with Pepe’s friends from Australia and walked around going to eat stuffed clams and fried mussels from this place. Really cheap since it is just street food. I didn’t realize how much seafood is here.

Honestly, we haven’t been doing much. I finished my Michigan secondary yesterday so that made me feel good and a large weight off my shoulders. However, this secondary I actually have to mail in. Every other school has been electronic. It is a bit annoying that I am send this one in by mail, hoping that it gets to where it needs to go.

Tomorrow we leave in the morning to Riga, Latvia to meet up with Cormac. Cormac is one of my buddies from way back when. I met his older brother who is my age when I was in the second grade. We worked together at scout camp. Cormac worked there too and that is where I met him the first time, but it wasn’t until we met at University that we became friends. We also went to Sweden together four years ago. Hard to believe that much time has gone by. Looking forward to seeing him tomorrow. We will be traveling from Latvia through Estonia up to Finland where he is getting his masters.

Mike and I are going to make egg rolls for our hosts and guests tonight, hang out a bit, pack, and say goodbye to a wonderful country, Turkey. I met and became friends with some really cool people.

(A couple days later)

Before leaving Turkey, we decided that we were going to make eggrolls for the other guests and our hosts. Yagmur and Ryan walked around Istanbul and finally found cabbage. However, we needed some kind of flat bread similar to that of lavash. Ryan and Mike went out and visited about four stores before they found some. I was at home chopping everything up. So after several hours of cooking it was finally finished and we enjoyed dinner together. I however, forgot to put the eggs in the eggrolls…. It was fine. I also put in cumin instead of black pepper into the mix. Still turned out alright.

We just stayed in and hung out. Mike and I didn’t have anything else to do and since we were out the night before, no sense in going out again.

The next morning, we took our time getting up, packing and heating up the left over egg rolls from the previous night. We ran out of lavash. There was left over pasta noodles so after adding a little bit of soy sauce, we had stir-fry for breakfast. I added the eggs this time. No major difference.

We said our goodbyes to our friends and walked down the hill to the tram. Although it took us about 90 minutes to get to the airport, it ended up costing us about 4 lira each or $2.20. We grabbed lunch and then got on the plane. The flight was 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not too bad.

Turkey was great, but I was excited to see Latvia.

Until next time…

Friday, August 19

Yesterday morning, we took our time getting up. Mike and I went to Starbuck’s just to treat ourselves to a taste of America. I can’t say it was the greatest thing as my tastes have changed. Drinks I used to enjoy are much too sweet now. At 11 we were to meet David Parks who I mentioned earlier as a volunteer from our group, from our training village in fact. We go way back.

We started out by getting some lunch/ breakfast. Not exactly brunch because it was more lunch time, but it was the first meal to me. So it would probably be better just to say “we had lunch”. David ordered me some kind of toast. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t that good either. It was good because it cost less than two dollars and that was fine with me. We then walked down the street to a hookah bar that David raved about. It was as good as he described it. On the seventh floor, it had a clear view of the harbor area and the Asian side of Istanbul. Really nice view. Ryan came after he finished his dealings with the New Zealand Consulate.

We then walked down to the harbor and decided that we wanted to try a Turkish bath. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry, I didn’t either but will gain an insight to what it is in my upcoming words.

Ryan left us and Mike, David, and myself, we had to figure out how to get across to the Asian side and find this Turkish bath or Humemi. I don’t think I spelled that right but its close enough. No one spoke English. We got on a boat and it took us straight across the river. As in from one side of the bridge to the other. A five-minute boat ride. Everyone got off. We didn’t know what to do so we got on another boat. Five minutes later we were on the same side we started on. We didn’t have a clue which boat to take. Since we lingered on the boat, it had already started to pull away from the dock. The boat had to pull back to the dock rendering it necessary in the boat pilots mind to let us know of our error by blaring the horn right as we were getting off. Thank you.

After several minutes of pantomiming, a boat attendant figured out what was going on and told us which boat to get on. It took us back to the other side, where we were not more than twenty minutes prior. Everyone got off. We followed the herd and ended up going the right direction; about 45 minutes behind schedule and now having traveled the same boat route three times.

We arrived at the Asian side. We had received some instruction from Ryan on how to get to the Humemi. They proved to be fruitless. So, every 100 meters or so I asked a man sitting on the side of the street “Chilinli Humemi?” It worked as we finally got there.

The Humemi also didn’t have anyone who spoke English, which had somewhat of a calming effect. They gave us towels and pointed at rooms on the second floor. We went up there and changed into towels and came back downstairs. The man took us into the large marble steam room where we just sat there asking each other what the next step was with not one of us having a real clue.

A 250 pound Turkish man came in with a towel around his waist and told David to follow him. Another came and told Mike to follow him. We walked into another room with marble sinks no more than two feet off the ground. I watched. It didn’t look so bad.

It was my turn. The man told me where to sit. I sat down and with a harsh scrubber, jus went to town on my body. My whole body. I just had to block it out because coming from a western culture, we don’t just let any bathe us. This man did scrubbed my back, and then my front. He scrubbed my legs. I still had a towel around me but he managed to go up far enough to ram one testicle into pelvic bone. I went numb. Every once in a while, he showed me all the dead skin that came off, proud of his work. I was just grossed out. Five more of those and I will be back to what I was like two years ago.

We then went back into the stream room, which has a fifteen foot diameter marble table. I laid down on it as this man put soap all over me. It felt good to me, but Michael was screaming and squirming around. I don’t think he liked it as much. I was funny watching David because his body type and structure resembles Gumby’s. Since this was our first time, we just laid limply and let the barbaric man just move us in whatever position he needed us to be in.

Overall a really good experience and you do feel a lot cleaner, like your skin can breathe again. I am not as tan anymore….

Since we went way out of our way to get to this bath, we saved about 60 Lira. This place had no tourists and is where the Turkish men go.

We took the ferry back to the European side and randomly met Ryan by the road. We were going to have a barbeque on his roof. It was really nice. They got fish to grill and we had that with an assortment of vegetables and sauces. It was a nice way to spend our evening.

We went back out that night to meet up with David and hung out in the area.

Today, I just hung around the house trying to catch up on work. There really isn’t too much left to see since we sprinted around trying to cover all the tourist spots thinking we wouldn’t have the time. Eh. It has been fun just hanging out and talking with Ryan and Yagmur and their other guests who are from Turkey and Australia.

Until next time…